Free Sad Cypress by Agatha Christie Page A

think—I shall sell the place if I can get a good offer.”
    Dr. Lord said rather flatly:
    â€œI see….”
    Elinor said:
    â€œI must be getting home now.”
    She held out her hand firmly. Peter Lord took it. He held it. He said very earnestly:
    â€œMiss Carlisle, will you please tell me what was in your mind when you laughed just now?”
    She wrenched her hand away quickly.
    â€œWhat should there be in my mind?”
    â€œThat’s what I’d like to know.”
    His face was grave and a little unhappy.
    Elinor said impatiently:
    â€œIt just struck me as funny, that was all!”
    â€œThat Mary Gerrard was making a will? Why? Making a will is a perfectly sensible procedure. Saves a lot of trouble. Sometimes, of course, it makes trouble!”
    Elinor said impatiently:
    â€œOf course—everyone should make a will. I didn’t mean that.”
    Dr. Lord said:
    â€œMrs. Welman ought to have made a will.”
    Elinor said with feeling:
    â€œYes, indeed.”
    The colour rose in her face.
    Dr. Lord said unexpectedly:
    â€œWhat about you?”
    â€œMe?”
    â€œYes, you said just now everyone should make a will! Have you? ”
    Elinor stared at him for a minute, then she laughed.
    â€œHow extraordinary!” she said. “No, I haven’t. I hadn’t thought of it! I’m just like Aunt Laura. Do you know, Dr. Lord, I shall go home and write to Mr. Seddon about it at once.”
    Peter Lord said:
    â€œVery sensible.”
    VI
    In the library Elinor had just finished a letter:
    Dear Mr. Seddon,—Will you draft a will for me to sign? Quite a simple one. I want to leave everything to Roderick Welman absolutely.
    Yours sincerely,
Elinor Carlisle
    She glanced at the clock. The post would be going in a few minutes.
    She opened the drawer of the desk, then remembered she had used the last stamp that morning.
    There were some in her bedroom, though, she was almost sure.
    She went upstairs. When she reentered the library with the stamp in her hand, Roddy was standing by the window.
    He said:
    â€œSo we leave here tomorrow. Good old Hunterbury. We’ve had some good times here.”
    Elinor said:
    â€œDo you mind its being sold?”
    â€œOh, no, no! I quite see it’s the best thing to be done.”
    There was a silence. Elinor picked up her letter, glanced through it to see if it was all right. Then she sealed and stamped it.

Six
    Letter from Nurse O’Brien to Nurse Hopkins, July 14th:
    Laborough Court
    Dear Hopkins,—Have been meaning to write to you for some days now. This is a lovely house and the pictures, I believe, quite famous. But I can’t say it’s as comfortable as Hunterbury was, if you know what I mean. Being in the dead country it’s difficult to get maids, and the girls they have got are a raw lot, and some of them not too obliging, and though I’m sure I’m never one to give trouble, meals sent up on a tray should at least be hot, and no facilities for boiling a kettle, and the tea not always made with boiling water! Still, all that’s neither here nor there. The patient’s a nice quiet gentleman—double pneumonia, but the crisis is past and doctor says going on well.
    What I’ve got to tell you that will really interest you is the very queerest coincidence you ever knew. In the drawing room, on the grand piano, there’s a photograph in a big silver frame; and would you believe it, it’s the same photograph that I told you about—the one signed Lewis that old Mrs. Welman asked for. Well, of course, I was intrigued—and who wouldn’t be? And I asked the butler who it was, which he answered at once saying it was Lady Rattery’s brother—Sir Lewis Rycroft. He lived, it seems, not far from here and he was killed in the War. Very sad, wasn’t it? I asked casual like was he married, and the butler said yes, but that Lady Rycroft went into a lunatic asylum, poor